The Madras Mail

I thought I’ll make some lists.

Things to do

1. Clean up my bag, will discover the remains of a lizard that died in the Triassic era.
2. Clean my shoes, will discover the remains of a bug which made out with a lizard that was stupid enough to die in a bag.
3. Find out where I kept my … err… Batman action figure. He can still fight crime you know.

Things that I want to do

1. Go to Brazil.
2. Meet Giselle Bundchen.
3. Bungee jump.
4. Drink absinthe.
5. Kick George W. Bush Jr. in his balls.
6. Dance.
7. Make shitloads of money, and spend it all.
8. Go to a specific hostel in Bratislava and check out the really cool human disemboweling apparatus.
9. Go to Amsterdam and figure out what the fuss is all about.
10. Drive a Koenigsegg CCXR.

Things I can do

1. Go eat dinner at Hot Chips and stop making stupid lists.

Oh I hate this life …

Reconciliation is a very difficult thing, especially when it involves familial problems.

I just finished watching a masterpiece of a movie by one G. Subramaniam a.k.a Mani Ratnam, Agni Natchatiram. For a movie that was released in 1988 (yes, I get all the facts from Wikipedia), it was far far ahead of its time. The bigamous father, feuding sons, helpless wives and mothers, a caught-between-her-father-and-her-brothers sister, the quite pointless but nonetheless beautiful starlets, and of course, the smooth talking son-of-a-bitch villain, a beautiful smorgasbord of talent which comes together to make a great movie, which it is.

If there was one thing that I miss from the tamil movies now is that the heroines look slutty rather than beautiful, the hero is still larger than life but c’mon, SJ Surya coupled with superman is not what I paid for, the storyline in most movies still suck, for example, Bheema, jeez, an excuse for a gangster movie, the music, Ilaiyaraaja is God, period, and finally, yes, I want more of meaning and less of masala.

I’m not trying to sound like a stuck-up ass who likes to watch only serious movies. Many people, atleast in the tamil film industry, seem to think that an artistic or a good movie means that it has to have the perennially grieving widow, the ever grumbling m-in-law, and the waiting to get revenge son. Crying and artistic sense are NOT the same. Oram po, another great movie is a perfect example, doubtless it had severe influences of Guy Ritchie, but the sheer audacity and the grip of the movie is simply what is lacking in most tamil movies of today.

As ever, Mani Ratnam is still God (yes, I believe in the multiplicity of God), and am just hoping that Nemichand and Hitesh Jhabak turn out to be as well.

This part of my life can be called, ‘Happiness’.

But then again, I’ve been thinking, there has never really been too many times in my life that I’ve not been happy. A couple of incidents at school, one at college with the Disciplinary Committee, almost none at work, my life has been pretty smooth till now *touchwood !!! touchwood!!!*.

I’ve been selected to be a part of the Xavier Labour Relations Institute to be a part of their Personnel Management & Industrial Relations Programme. All I’ve been listening to for the past 2 days is, ‘Congratulations Vicky, athu nalla college, nalla padichu nalla velaikku po‘. My cousin told me, ‘Dey, the programme will be a joke, have fun and haul your ass to the United States to have some more fun‘. Whilst my friends settled for, ‘Lavad***bal, otha, you are gonna f***kin pay for everything from now‘.

Life … quite an enigma …

I wonder what quite causes the effect commonly referred to as ‘high’. I know that it is a completely chemical process, where a little of my brain and a lot of Organic Chemistry work together with the so beautiful fermented stuff to produce a nice buzz, for most people, and a complete black-out, for me.

I’m actually more concerned about the reason for the specie Homo Sapiens to go through a completely controlled, self motivated pursuit of substance abuse that will cause the total breakdown of any moral character ending in quite disastrous consequences. One could explain it with Thermodynamics, entropy and such, but since I flunked in every single exam of Chemistry that I have ever written (except of course the 12th Std. Board Exams, in which I obtained a very respectable 68, after some very needed help from Sundeep on how to draw the structure of SiO2), I will not go down that path. I could alternatively try the ‘rebel’ factor, but again it seems like a weak argument knowing the fact that if anything is ‘cool’ the first time, it rarely is the tenth time. I could try the ‘breaking-the-ice-to-start-a-conversation’ bit, but most people I know don’t stop at socially acceptable amounts (except Sundeep of course, cheers dude, you’ll still have your liver when mine is inside a refrigerator), say for example George, who drinks what an entire White House party for 200 drinks, and ends up having more ethanol than blood in his ‘blood-stream’. Alternatively, there is the ‘Devdas-beard-paro-loewing-while-she’s-getting-married-to-an-older-uglier-guy’ bit, still seems quite weak, firstly because alcohol does not make you feel better, it f***ks the head up, hangovers are very bad, and frankly, I don’t think Paro is going to leave a rich, fat, old guy who’s about to die and has an inheritance that’s the size of George’s capacity for alcohol for a beard toting alcoholic.

I’m not able to come up with any reasons.

Why this ‘moral quandary’ all of a sudden? One, I’m vetti. Two, I’m still vetti. Three, I want to know why am drinking?

PS. My stance on tobacco and marijuana will be up in a while.

March 21st, 2008
I am officially unemployed.

Yesterday happened to be my last day at one of the best places to work in on the planet, Ericsson India Pvt. Ltd., Gopalapuram Office. After spending the last 10 months there, reading the news for 4 hours, reviewing movies, sandwiches at 11, lunches at the Copper Chimney, Kabul, cell phone towers, BTS-s, MSC-s, BSC-s, SAP Project Builder, invoicing, et cetera, today I find myself at home feeling that something inside me has actually died. I’ll miss that place, the nicest people I’ve ever met, who put up with all the shit I did and made me feel at home. Thank you Ericsson, I don’t think I can ever work anywhere else again.

I had a discussion with my cousin yesterday on my future plans, he’s a historian by the way. He told me to look at life as if it were a prison and not the free world as we think of it. Rather, a prison where we get snatches of freedom, certain times when there are inmates who we can talk to, and about how man is never free and so forth. Yeah, that f***ed me up.

Right now, the only thing that I want to do is to travel the world, and open a restaurant/bar. Nothing else seems important to me. I need money for all that, that’s why am into this whole MBA scenario.

Now that am ‘retired’, I plan on getting myself a pipe, books by Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche, a recliner, a humidor full of Cuban cigars and some very fine Scotch Whisky.

Ahh… life …

The names in this post have been changed to protect the identity of the person/s involved.

The story revolves around one person, let’s call him Mr.V. Mr.V apparently has a huge problem. He learnt to drink with one Mr.G, who gulps his drinks neat rather than sip like say, Mr.S.

That aside, Mr.V and Mr.G were invited to a party by Mr.S at 10 Downing Street. (No, Mr.S does not know the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, that used to be a classy watering hole, until Mr.V got done with it, after which it ceased to be)

The party had begun by the time Mr.V and Mr.G got there, and I must describe the situation here. It was a small room, low-ceilinged, and was filled with about 20 people. Mr.V had his priorities right and headed straight for the alcohol. One more thing, the jackass that Mr.V is, he came to the party on an empty stomach, and was drinking whisky neat, and since Mr.G also was doing the same thing, he thought he was fine. But what Mr.V did not realize was, is that Mr.G had his head made of f***ing titanium that simply took obscenely large quantities of alcohol and still allowed him to stay sane. But this was not the case with Mr.V. On a normal day, after eating some food, Mr.V could have taken about 5 drinks, gotten high, and returned to normalcy in about half an hour. But no, Mr.V had something close to 7 drinks, that transalates to half a liter of whisky, neat, in a span of one hour, in a low-ceilinged room, with blasting music and complete lack of oxygen.

All was fine till the 7th drink. Now the story proceeds with the recollections of Mr.S and Mr.G as Mr.V was temporarily out of action.

Mr.V passed out, on a table, where two girls, the names are irrelevant, had their drinks. After that Mr.V threw up. Then he had to carried to the car by 6 people, he is pretty heavy apparently, and deposited rather discourteously into the car. Then Mr.S got himself and everyone else banned from the pub due to the antics of Mr.V. Mr.G dragged Mr.V to his house and took the services of one Mr.K to kick Mr.V’s ass. After about two hours, Mr.V was tucked up in bed, smelling like a pig, and wearing clothes he doesn’t remember changing into.

By the time Mr.V woke up the next day, everyone who lived above the Equator, including one Mr.Ko and Mr.Ar, who live in the United States of America, knew in intricate detail on what happened that night, except of course, Mr.V.

And now, Mr.SJ is making fun of Mr.V, this is the last nail in the coffin.

F*** you Gordon Brown !!!!